Broken Pieces
by Dinette
Summary: When Harry's gone, its left to Sirius to pick up the pieces...


Prologue

He watched her sitting by herself in the pale moonlight, the shadows and pearl-like glow alternately darting and gleaming across the snow

He'd observed enough to make him worried by now. He'd watched her for a little less than a week, and already he was pretty certain of the way things were. To anyone else, she would have come off as normal. But he'd been keeping an eye on her. 

She'd been talking, though, instead of the typical withdrawn state of the other war survivors. But all words and no meaning. I'm fine, yes, no, of course. 

She'd shown a brief but fierce storm of tears at the funeral, held without the unfound body. Subsequently, however, she'd dried them with a handkerchief, folding and putting her life away with the cloth.

Hermione had always been the bright, brainy child. She'd gone through what no wizards of her own age had ever gone through. And through it all she'd remained ever the practical one, the one who packed lunches for the boys. The one who gave them words of encouragement whenever Ron got too emotional, or Harry too depressed.

It was frightening to see how she'd rapidly sunk into her own state of depression.

Of course, the signs hadn't been obvious, or apparent at all, to others. But it was to him. After all, he'd been in Azkaban.

The most fearful thing there for him hadn't been the fearful conditions, the Dementors themselves. For most of the convicted prisoners, they'd heard the cries of their past victims. Faced day and night with themselves, their thoughts, their victims' last thoughts, they slowly but surely had been driven to dementia.

Sirius, although having neither past victims nor guilt, had always been on the verge of turning insane himself. Surrounded by the demented all day, he had always almost been convinced that he himself was guilty and crazed.

It was indeed opportune, and very fortunate that Fudge had come when he had, bringing with him a newspaper and an escape.

He'd gotten his escape route by luck, and now Hermione needed one too. 

And he had promised Harry to look after her for him. 

In other words, it was time for a talk.

He turned away from the frosted pane and went out through the door to get his coat.

*

Dangling her legs over the large fallen tree trunk, Hermione sat, oblivious to both the cold and the tiny snowflakes building up around her, the voices spinning around in her head too loud, blocking out the low howl of the wind.

Harry had died two months ago. That's what everyone told her. They didn't tell her in so many words, but they told it in the way that they stopped talking when she came into the room, and started looking with pity at her.

IGrieving child, only eighteen and both her friends killed tragically, we must cheer her up/I.

They told it in the way they talked cheerfully about the weather, the latest in the news, and then talked softly about getting a headstone for the graves.

She'd played along, conversing, chatting, and intentionally avoiding the subject That Must Not Be Named. 

Because that was how she wanted it anyway. 

They were all wrong and lying, Harry was coming back, he always did. He'd be coming back. They were lying, weren't they? He was, he had to be, he'd promised, hadn't he?

She shut her eyes, squeezed them so she saw the fuzzy film of disconnection and concentration before them. 

What had he said exactly? He'd said, "Don't worry, I'll be back." And Harry never lied. And he hadn't. Come back yet. But he would, wouldn't he?

Here her train of thought was broken off as an ungainly figure threw itself down beside her on the log. Sensing it, she opened her eyes and got up. She wanted to be left alone to think and find that she thought of nothing. To feel numb and as cold as the snow on the ground, instead of the sickening and familiar dull ache shoved down her throat.

The figure arose, revealing itself to be Sirius as it grabbed her by the forearms and spun her back onto the log.

"Leave me alone." she turned again, only to find herself set firmly back on the log.

The next time she felt the familiar grasp, she twisted out of it, turning to face him.

"Leave me alone. What part of that didn't you understand?" her tone held the slight edge of steel that comes with irrational anger. Her wand pointed dangerously at him, but her other arm was shaking.

"We need to talk." Damn. He needed to get to her, not to get her to kill him.

"About?"

"Harry." He'd seriously no idea where that'd popped out from, but instinctively he knew it was the right answer, even if the only indication he'd had was the slight clench of her fist.

"I've done that. Given interviews too. Go look it up in the Daily Prophet Archives." that's right. Get him to go away, anything but this. The line was being crossed, and she'd bloody well protect it.

Good. At least now she was showing some emotion.

"Won't you just leave me alone? I think I've gone through enough to deserve that."

"Look, ever since Harry died you've been like this. Now listen to me." Here he yanked her around by her shoulders to face him.

"Harry did all he could to make sure the people he loved could live."

Hermione felt her insides shaking, her brain screaming "No don't say it don't do it don't". If she could just run away now, she wouldn't have to face anything.

"He wanted you to live, Hermione, so he died."

There it was. Out in the open, dragged to the surface. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a very wobbly voice came out.

"He's not coming back, is he?"

Sirius took a deep breath and exhaled softly.

"He's not coming back, Hermione."

And as she burst into tears he stepped toward her, his shoes going crunch in the snow, gently patting her back as the salty sweet bitter soaked his front.

*

A light snow had begun falling, and salt, possessing the useful property of lowering freezing temperatures, was about to make a human icicle out of him. Besides, Hermione had nearly stopped crying, so that was good, wasn't it?

For now

The whisper came in from the back door of his mind, the one he usually bolted. He had been through the same situation before himself – losing everything. 

But he had had his revenge to cling onto, the only thing that had kept him sane through his entire prison sentence was the thought that he'd got to get out and kill Peter.

Whereas Hermione, looking for someone, something to blame, had drawn a blank. And so she'd tried to rise out of her depression be simply not acknowledging the source – that Harry was dead. It was typical in cases of extreme duress or depression.

On the upside, she'd finally had to face that Harry was really gone – which also meant that she might next decide to start looking for a scapegoat, possibly herself. Not exactly the best thing in the world.

What she needed, he thought ponderously, was to be given a chance to cut away from this place. It was no good for her here at Hogwarts, where every corner tossed up a turn of a memory, and every green eyed boy was Harry and every red-headed one Ron.

And, he added firmly, Definitely no good to be standing out in the cold winter air.

*

Poppy Pomfrey had known she would be in for a long night the second she heard the extremely loud, not to mention violent, hacking and sneezing heading her way.

"You! I might have know." 

She glowered, arms akimbo at the boy Well, not exactly a boy any longer but still… who Always Did Dangerous Stunts to Endanger His Life And Others and Make Her Worry and Grow Grey Hairs.

Sirius had the grace to look sheepishly at the ground and mutter incoherently.

"Straight to bed, both of you now!" she tossed him a change of robes, and started to lead Hermione away, presumably to give her a sleeping draught and make sure she got into bed.

Wrinkling his nose at the polka-dotted apparel, he gave a cheerful "G'nite."

Hermione opened her mouth to reciprocate the sentiment, but it gave way to a cross between a cough and a sneeze.

Madam Pomfrey, highly alarmed, felt her head, shook her own useful appendage, and tutted a good deal.

"Why on earth you would choose to go walking in the coldest winter Hogwarts' experienced in five decades is completely beyond me."

The typically brisk, down to earth tones of the mediwitch almost made Sirius feel as though he were fifteen once more, and it was the Marauders again, in a particularly badly executed escapade.

Blinking back to reality, he grinned and closed the door after Madam Pomfrey and Hermione.

It was only hours later, when everything was dark and still except for the thickly falling snow, and Hermione was safely tucked in the adjacent ward, that a tear, or two, or three, slid its own crooked way down one cheek and onto the fluffy pillow.

They went unchecked by their owner, as he lay staring at the ceiling.

"Oh Harry." the rough whisper spoke brokenly to the ceiling, "why did you go and leave her for?"

and us?, the back whisper slipped out once more.

***


End file.
